The invention relates to a food-heating appliance and more particularly to a food-heating appliance having a cooking unit insert with a plurality of cooking subchambers.
Conventional food-heating appliances have a heating unit and a cooking unit. The heating unit typically has a bottom heating area. Some units include a continuous sidewall upstanding therefrom to define a heating chamber. The sidewall is usually either circular or oval in cross-section. Such heating units have one or more electric heating elements mounted thereto that are adapted to supply heat to the cooking unit. One or more control switches, circuited to supply electricity, control the heating elements.
The cooking unit typically has a bottom with a continuous sidewall upstanding therefrom. The cooking unit has a flange-like lip extending from the upper side of the sidewall that is adapted to engage the upper surface of the heating unit sidewall when the cooking unit is placed therein. In some appliances, such as the Crock-Pot.RTM. slow cooker manufactured by The Rival Company, the cooking unit is made of ceramic and is adapted to work in conjunction with the heating unit to cook food products in a slow, uniform fashion.
The cooking of food products in the Crock-Pot.RTM. slow cooker is performed in a steady, even manner because the ceramic or "crockery" cooking unit conducts heat evenly within the cooking chamber. Furthermore, the ceramic sidewalls of the cooking unit conduct and hold heat for an extended period of time to level any fluctuations in temperature if the heating element in the heating unit cycles on and off. The cooking unit may be used as a heat-retaining serving container.
Such food-heating appliances, however, utilize cooking units with only a single heating chamber formed therein. This is a disadvantage when multiple food products are desired to be slow-cooked. In the past, if a consumer wished to slow-cook more than one food product, the consumer would have to purchase multiple food-heating appliances, which is undesirably costly to the consumer.